Justin Porter

This ought to be an utter delight to watch built!

One quick update after a nice productive night at the shop last night. Managed to get the frame and suspension in color. I used Army Painter's Incursion Orange as the primary color while details were picked out in a selection of Tamiya, Army Painter, and Vallejo paints.

While I wait on decals and paint for my Jaguar XJR9, I decided to tackle something essentially the polar opposite of the Group C Jag. I had picked up this '37 Ford Coupe kit some time ago and used its TPI Chevy 350 in a build of the Revell Willys. So in staring at the shelf to decide on the next project it occurred to me that I had a 392 Hemi with no home and a '37 Ford with no engine and we were off to the races. I'll be using the kit's very nice Cragar S/S's and big n little tire package. Haven't yet decided on color but I'm leaning towards either a bright red or a pearl orange. Either way, a 392 Hemi is much wider than a TPI 350 so a little bit of firewall modification had to be made. It was quick work with my PE saw, a little bit of sheet styrene, and a swipe of Vallejo Putty.

It's in general just a gorgeous build of one of the Octagons best brutes. So happy you got this one together.

I agree with Craig on the AMT/MPC '69 442 as a chassis donor and would suggest the Revell '68 Pontiac Firebird as a source for a good Pontiac 400.

I would imagine a strip of the tape or chrome foil painted black would serve nicely for the panel and then drill and mount some of the KA Models small rivets.

Fresh update on the XJR-9. The body is now primed with AK Microfiller White and ready for its first coats of Tamiya Pure White. I'll be getting in the TS37 Lavender and the Indycals decals next week to move forward from the white step. The barely visible brakes were painted with AK Xtreme Metal dark aluminum, with Vallejo Metal Color magnesium for the rotor hat and Tamiya titanium gold for the calipers. The Tamiya tire markings actually went down without a fuss which made me especially happy.

The A110 is definitely one of the gems of the Tamiya classic sports car range. So happy you got a chance to build and enjoy one so much.

I'm really so happy to see that this is turning out so beautifully.

Plan is the Silk Cut livery but as the Danny Sullivan/Davy Jones/Price Cobb #21 just because Sullivan was one of several childhood favorite Indy drivers.

So, this is an unfinished build from my early 20's. It got shelved when an error in masking the nose meant that the purple area was oversized for the yellow boundary stripes. Whoops! Recently, in an effort to continue clearing out my basement (much like with last year's Mako Shark II build) I stripped the body with some old Testors ELO and set about getting the build up to scratch. There's definitely a LOT I would redo in the engine bay but I don't trust disassembling that region. On the other hand, the interior was only hand-brushed with Tamiya X-18 so I just sanded that back smooth and airbrushed a coat of Mr Color Burnt Iron over instead. I've found that Burnt Iron does a good job of standing in for carbon fiber decals in some instances, like when a curved windshield is going to hide a good deal of what's visible. I did have fun finding a reference picture of the dashboard and painting it to match. Going to order a replacement set of decals from Indycals and looking forward to having this beast on the shelf at LAST!

To put it most bluntly, the bulk of the model kit industry is situated in Kyiv while the worst of the war has taken place in the Eastern Donbas region near Donetsk and Mariupol; some 400 miles away. It's a bit analogous if not directly comparable to saying "Why are the lights on in Dallas when a hurricane just blew Galveston off the map?"

ICM themselves very plainly described stopping all activity at their factory in February of 2022 and announced that they were back to work in April of 2022. They're a relatively small company, as most model kit companies are, and they've had the good fortune to be able to return to what is their routine. Not every model kit manufacturer in the Ukraine has been as fortunate. On one hand, Miniart, Dora Wings, and ICM have returned to something approximating business as usual. On the other, Clear Prop has struggled to return to routine business and Roden lost their supremely talented box artist Valery Grigorenko to the violence. However circumstances have arranged themselves, earnest hardworking people have gone back to work doing what they love.

Happy to see the Penske Mustangs on their way primarily because Ohio is Blaney territory on account of the family's sprint car exploits so we'll doubtless move a few.

The fantastic Ukrainian model kit manufacturer looks to be expanding their selection of 1/24th scale antique autos. While details are scant at the moment, my distributor recently listed the following as an upcoming kit from ICM. ICM #24050 - 1/24 American Model A Standard Phaeton 1930's Soft Top Passenger Car (New Tool) Grabbed the first Google result for a picture of the subject and I must say that done to the same level as their wonderful Model T's or Benz Patent Motorwagen this will be an absolute joy of a kit and I can't wait to stock it!

Very nice to see. I'm fairly partial to the modifieds.

It was actually a reasonably productive year for me in terms of modeling output. It especially makes a difference that I effectively had two months away from my bench with demolition, construction, and expansion at my shop taking precedence over my own models. I'm also really proud because two of these in particular - the 250GT SWB and the MGB GT - represent major "I always wanted to do that!" builds that I am beyond glad to have completed. I'm also really pleased because as the 250GT and the Mini show, I've now got a photo booth for shooting finished builds which definitely shows them off better than shooting them on the shop's register counter!

This is such a clean build of a truly exciting car and kit. Just getting an Enthusiast Series kit across the finishing line is a monumental task.

Really fantastic and I genuinely love how subtle the little additions are.

Built Hasegawa's kit of my current daily driver - a 2011 Mini Cooper Countryman S All4

All wrapped up and starting the new year! This was the "California Wheels" edition of the Revell '67 Chevelle SS396 kit. I added the supercharger and EFI from the AMT '68 El Camino street machine, the electric fan and disc brakes from a Revell '32 Ford Speedwagon, the seats and billet steering wheel from a Revell '41 Willys Street Rod, and a prewired distributor from Gofer. This was a fun build and I'm pretty pleased with the results even if I'm not really much of a muscle car builder.

Latest update on the build. Window trim is all done and pretty happy with those results. I'm cautiously optimistic about the emblem decals. The chassis turned out pretty well too. I found a set of Revell '32 Ford rotors and calipers to replace the kit units that had been lost to time. I replaced the kit alternator with one from AMT that had the proper bracket, trimmed away the plastic belts, and made new belts from Tamiya tape painted Rubber Black. UNFORTUNATELY arriving at this point revealed a minor fit hiccup - the K&N style air filter for the EFI setup hits the underside of the hood as-is so I'm going to be scratchbuilding an intake pipe to move the filter down and forward. Ah well, onward we go!

Going to need one of those Gordini sets for myself without a doubt.

Really hoping that DModelKits finds a a wholesale distributor for here in the states so I can get some of these onto my shelf. That Escort and the Citroen C4 in particular would be big eye-catches in my shop.

Continuing progress on the '67 Chevelle has led to some fun developments. The interior was finished off in AK Interactive RC210 Silbergrau and to freshen it up a bit I added the seats and billet steering wheel from the Revell '41 Willys Street Rod. Getting to this point meant time for a mock-up to determine if we're on the right track and I'm quite pleased with the out-of-box stance. Now onto masking and spraying the trim with AK Interactive Xtreme Metal Chrome as is my standard.